Tabla de contenidos para February 2016 en topCar

STEP INSIDE the new 2016 Mercedes Benz E-Class and it’s hard to tell whether you’re sitting in a motor show concept or a smaller version of the S-Class limousine. Headline features include a huge, floating widescreen-display and more LED lights than the Builder’s Warehouse Christmas aisle. We’ve been at the home of Mercedes-Benz in Stuttgart to see what we can expect from the 2016 saloon. Futuristic, multi-layered E-Class dashboard The new E’s dashboard wraps around from door to door and frames the new widescreen display, which is backlit by LED strips to give a modernist, floating effect. There are no traditional bulbs used in the interior at all and the LED ambient lighting can be customised with a choice of 64 colours. Pick the optional Burmester 3D stereo and its…

1 THE MAN Walter Maria de’Silva, 64, was born in Lecco, Italy. His architect father wanted Walter to follow in his footsteps, but he switched to car design, starting at Fiat in 1972. After running design at Alfa Romeo, Seat and Audi, he became head of VW Group design in 2007, leading to responsibility for eight brands and, by 2014, the look, feel and function of ten million new cars a year. 2 THE BREAKTHROUGH CAR De’Silva transformed Alfa Romeo in the ’90s with the 156 (1997). Clean lines, uninterrupted by a rear-door handle ‘hidden’ in the window frame made every saloon look like a sporty coupe and the 156 a hit. VW Group soon courted his services. 3 CAMERAS AND CHAIRS TOO… With more than a decade’s experience in…

1 Flip-top hotshot – having sold all 500 examples of the 675 LT Coupe before production had even started, McLaren has now announced a similarly limited run of 675 LT Spiders. Reinforcing Woking’s plan to establish ‘Longtail’ as its Speciale, these get the same upgraded engine and chassis package, but offer infinite headroom thanks to the retractable roof. 2 Devil’s hairdryer – the roof mechanism adds 40kg to the LT Spider’s weight, bringing it in at 1270kg dry. With 497kW it matches the Coupe’s 2.9sec 0-100kph but aero disadvantages cost it 0.2sec by the time you hit 200kph. Still, 8.1sec ain’t slow. 3 Look ma, no bracing – thanks to the immense strength of the MonoCell carbonfibre tub, the Spider requires no additional bracing. But the fresh-air facility means owners…

BAD NEWS COMES in threes, so the saying goes, and if you aim that maxim at the German motoring industry then here’s the last in the trifecta; Porsche binning natural aspiration in favour of twinturbocharging follows the much-discussed BMW decision to pull as well as push and Volkswagen AG’s penchant for cheating on their diesel SATs. Actually in one of those at least, it’s mostly a storm in a teacup; grubby parents in the market for a 2 Series Active Tourer unlikely to give a sticky toffee about what wheels propel what part of their famowagon where. And possibly two out of three, with the news that, after driving the latest twin-turbocharged 911 Carrera and Carrera S all the way up a volcano and down again, there’s less to get…

MARBELLA, SPAIN. ‘Would you drive this hard if this was your own vehicle?’ Bentley chief Wolfgang Dürheimer is not amused. What’s irking the man are the smelly drifts of smoke rising from all four brakes at a coffee stop. ‘Better take it to the next village and back for a cool-down drive.’ Yes, sir! A few clicks down the road the brakes begin to recover but there’s no smoke without fire, and in this case the issue is the Bentayga’s 2422kg kerb weight and the mighty thrust provided by the latest iteration of Bentley’s 6.0-litre W12 engine. Why steel brakes? ‘Because the carbon ceramic brakes are not ready yet,’ admits senior engineer Rolf Frech. So Bentley’s first SUV can give its brakes a hard time, but perhaps this apparent failing…

AFTER WHAT SEEMS like countless facelifts, the third-generation Renault Megane is finally being shuffled off to the retirement home many thought it had been ensconced in for years. It’s to be replaced in 2016 by an all-new model, the launch ambitiously heralded with a Renaultsport-developed 151kW GT five-door hatch to prove the new model’s dynamic, sexier credentials. And it really is all-new. Longer and lower than the outgoing model, with a longer wheelbase and significantly wider front and rear track widths, it’s based on Renault’s new Common Module Family platform (already underpinning Kadjar, Espace and Talisman), which frees up more interior space. There’s also an iPad-style centre console, far more handsome, muscular styling, distinctive LED wings for lights, a better quality cabin and for the range-topping model (until Renaultsport goes…

THINGS MAY not have gone exactly to plan during the recent launch of Toyota’s latest version of the RAV4, but in a way the problems simply underscored the capabilities of the Japanese marque’s little rascal. Not that it’s that little anymore. The RAV4 first graced our shores back in 1995 as the first of its kind. Honda’s CR-V followed shortly thereafter, and since then the compact SUV class has exploded. Despite radically increased competition, the RAV4 never missed a beat with the second generation arriving in 2000 and the third generation in 2005. The current model was released in 2014, and was given a slight makeover in December 2015. Under the skin, Toyota has massaged the RAV4 into a car more than capable of holding its own in the marketplace.…

IN A WORLD where legislators are slowly relieving drivers of their age-old duties it is cool to encounter a car that encourages the keen driver without breaking the bank. The Opel Corsa Sport is just such a car. While it doesn’t profess to be an earth-scorching missile, it’s no numb tortoise either, just a good old-fashioned sportier version of an already decent hatch. Time to shine Launched midway through 2015, the latest Corsa has lived in the shadow of the glitz and glam of its more striking little bro, the Adam. In isolation, it’s a tight design. Although not all new – monocoque and glass are carried over from the previous car – the Corsa is pretty convincing as far as complete reskins go. Intriguing design details include the hockey…

PESSIMISTS MIGHT ACCUSE BMW’s M Division of losing focus. New boss Frank van Meel joined from understeer specialists quattro GmbH; the M4’s turbo engine can’t hold a candle to the old M3’s V8; and Hyundai snaffled second-in-command Albert Biermann. Are the alloys falling off the ultimate driving machine? Not if the M2 and M4 GTS can deliver. Today we’re at M headquarters in Garching, Munich to learn more about these key new models, chewing the details with van Meel, new vice president Dirk Haecker, and chassis engineers, engine specialists and project managers too. Both M2 and M4 GTS go straight for the M jugular – steroidal looks, thumping power, driver-focused rear-drive chassis – but nothing encapsulates the M ethos better than M2. Arriving April, the M2 will be priced midway…

ON ONE HAND the LP580-2 is a Huracan with the propshaft and front diff removed. The net result is, funnily enough, a cheaper (sic), lighter (by 33kg), simpler version of Lamborghini’s V10 supercar. So this is the new ‘entrylevel’ Lambo, and as such – and to preserve the LP610-4’s modesty – Sant’Agata has also seen fit to modestly de-tune the V10 here, though 427kW means 0-100kph is still only the work of 3.4sec (3.2sec for the LP610-4). So far so predictable, except that the LP580-2 is also more oversteer-biased and, in the words of boss Stephan Winkelmann himself, nothing less than ‘the purest expression of a Lamborghini to date, and a serious car for serious drivers’. Still thinking entry level? It would be fair to describe chief test pilot Mario…

THE VAST ROLLER-SHUTTER door shudders as the electric motor takes up the slack. The noise reverberates around a silent, apparently vast space beyond. The man from Mercedes glances left and right as he holds his thumb to the button, though unless I’m grossly underestimating the bored-looking cat on the other side of the road there’s little here to threaten the secrecy of this most anonymous of industrial buildings. Slowly, inexorably, the door rises, exposing first an endless gloom and then, well, wonder. The warehouse is aircraft-hanger vast and it is full. The door grinds to a halt and the silence that follows, combined with the bright winter light cascading through the weathered translucent roof, lends the scene a kind of religious luminescence: a Michelangelo in which machines have replaced men.…

THE INDUSTRY IS talking incessantly about the Internet of Things [IoT: networks of connected physical objects, from cars to heart monitors] but what does it mean in the context of a vehicle? It’ll become meaningful when information is harnessed usefully, and when the services it offers are intuitive. To an extent this collaborative data exchange is already happening. Your XE knows where you are, so when you look for parking spaces in your city it won’t show you options in another. IoT will move this on. It’ll be a game-changer when it becomes a seamless user experience. On cold mornings in the past you had to leave the house to start your car and warm it up. Now you can pre-condition the climate control using a phone app. In the…

KEEP TRACK OF YOUR IMPORTANT KEYS KEY FINDER The RioRand key finder makes sure your keys will always be found. With a cool looking base, an LED torch and the main feature, a remote wireless key finder this will be a conversation piece. There’s an RF transmitter with four receivers to track down your keys within a 40m range. Now we need one to find missing socks… $26 (+/-R590) www.riorand.com CARABINER-STYLE MULTI-TOOL IS COOL SWISSTECH KEY RING Tools are cool, and a compact tool kit will always be a winner. The carabiner-style quick release mechanism has effortless fastening and unfastening. The tools and locking mechanism snap into position and it features a built-in bright white LED flashlight. Also includes Phillips and flat-head screwdrivers, a knife, a bottle opener…

NOW THAT EVERY new 911 buyer can brag about owning a turbo, how are the proper Turbo and Turbo S going to cope? Should we send flowers? A counsellor? No, wait – Porsche has beaten us to it, and gifted the capital-T brigade with a nose job and an extra 15kW. This means the Turbo is up to 397kW, courtesy of modified inlet ports, new injection nozzles and increased fuel pressure, and executes 0-100kph in 3.0sec on its way to 318kph. The Turbo S gets entirely new turbos with larger compressors and has swelled to 427kW; 0-100kph takes 2.9sec, while an 12kph increase to 330kph makes it the first 911 Turbo to officially top the double ton. Coincidentally, that’s nearly 2kph more than McLaren quotes for the 570S… Going full…

THE INTERNAL COMBUSTION engine may be in the autumn of its long life. Fortunately, it looks like enjoying an Indian summer rather than a foggy fall. At the recent Tokyo show, Mazda previewed a shapely new concept car called the RX Vision, powered by that most delightfully simple of power units, a rotary. A production version for 2017 was hinted at. Meanwhile, the sight of the delicious Jaguar C-X75 thundering through the streets of Rome in the Bond movie Spectre reminded me of the early days of that stillborn concept car, when it was powered by twin micro gas turbines. The good people at Bladon Jets continue developing their promising engines, and production versions are one day likely. But let us return to the rotary. The brainchild of former Hitler…

IT’S AMAZING WHAT an unrestrained marketing department can come up with. According to Mazda’s gifted, the CX-3 is targeted at ‘misfit adults. People that don’t fit in. Think hipsters and people with tattoos. Independent thinkers...’ and it doesn’t stop there. ‘It resembles a cheetah! Do you see it?’ Frankly no, handsome as it is – and no length of PowerPoint presentation was going to change my mind. When faced with Kodo, Mazda’s current design language, they’re quick to let their collective imagination run wild. They’re also quite quick to point out that their new CX-3 compact SUV is patently not a shrunken CX-5, nor is it a Mazda2 that’s ‘crossed-over’. Well of course it isn’t silly, because as we’ve already covered, it is in fact a cheetah. Ironically if you’re…

INFINITI’S FIRST GLOBAL foray into the fast-growing premium compact segment is an example of the way motoring – or manufacturing at least – is likely to go. Underneath the flamboyant Infiniti body is, to all intents and purposes, a Mercedes-Benz GLA, the result of a cooperative deal between the two manufacturers. Certainly Infiniti seem to be getting the better deal – a tested platform that has proved popular across the world is a great – and cheaper – way to accelerate an ambitious product expansion plan. First that skin. Listen to the ad men and they’ll tell you Q30 is an ‘active’ compact vehicle; there’s no mention of the word crossover. That’s because the QX30 – an even higher-riding version of the Q30 with crossover-style bumpers – launches later in…

YOU KNOW THE drill on road trips: ‘Dad, are we there yet!?’ and ‘pull over, I need the toilet!’ are as much part of the experience as a cooler packed to the nines with padkos, a fool-proof plan to attack the holiday traffic, and of course, the vehicle. Growing up, personally, it was the T3 Kombi, Microbus, whatcha-ma-call-it – the one produced in the 80s and 90s and made famous by David Kramer’s catchy advertisement jingle: ‘the 2.5-five-cylinder-volksie-bus…’ Volkswagen’s marketing push in 2016 is to play on that nostalgia and hopefully rekindle the same sense of family with the new T6. And who can blame them after the pasting they’ve been getting over #dieselgate? Hence our first drive in the new T6, thinly disguised as a family road trip. As…

WELCOME TO THE zenith of opulence, style and sophistication. This is the luxury saloon segment and while it’s been largely dominated by the Mercedes-Benz S-Class for decades, the recent onslaught from its German rivals has made it one of the most hotly contested around. It’s into this high-tech luxury battlefield that BMW has launched its latest flagship 7 Series. Wrapped in a refined outward appearance and sporting some carbonfibre goodness this all-new Seven offers not only first-class luxury but one of the most compelling driving experiences yet. Lucky number seven Large three-box sedans are generally not the most beautiful shapes around but the 730d’s understated aesthetics and sophisticated styling cues generate plenty of interest from onlookers. Cleverly, the car’s designers have managed to disguise much of its bulk without sacrificing…

THE VOLKSWAGEN GROUP’S MQB platform, that ubiquitous lightweight architecture that supports everything from the humble Golf 7 to – come late 2016 – the ballistic Audi TT RS, has another cousin. TTS is Audi’s coupe S3, and just as S3 played happily in the limelight until the recent arrival of the RS3, TTS has its moment in the sun – until the all-conquering, 280kW TT RS bahnstorms in and hogs the familial limelight. The attraction of S The S moniker, like Porsche GTS models, walks the line between the conventional model (the TT) and the outright performance car (RS). Depending on your point of view it is either a compromise or a have-your-cake-and-eat-it election. On balance, the S Audis are the latter, a blend of Clarke Kent weeks and Superman…

INSTEAD OF THE sound of middle-class indignation and outraged hand-wringing all I can hear is the bellow of tyres squealing on hot tarmac. And the sound of laughter, I can hear that too, and it seems to be coming from me. I can’t help it. I’m peering over the red ‘straight ahead’ marker at the top of an alcantara steering wheel, hanging on like a rollercoaster passenger as the twists and undulations of the Algarve’s mini-Nürburgring unfold before me in a constantly hastening flurry. Over the walkie-talkie rattling in the cupholder a German voice from the pace-setting Golf R ahead urges me on: ‘Speed is good, get closer to me, find ze apex, aim for ze cone! Come on, come on! Use third, flat here, flat!’ I’ll level with you:…

OF COURSE BY hybrid I mean it’s a Toyota Hilux D-4D stripped of its original 3.0-litre diesel engine and outfitted instead with a gnarly V8 sourced from the Lexus IS-F sports saloon. Toyota calls this menace ‘The Rex’, that’s Racing EXperience to be exact. So naturally, I was tempted to title this feature ‘Indominus’ as a tribute to that other Rex, also a hybrid – the main antagonist in the recent Jurassic World movie. Like its scaly namesake it is fierce and untameable, except the one with the Toyota badge is far, far louder. What is it? See that sticker running across the windscreen? Note the hashtag ‘HiluxMillion?’ That’s not a reference to the amount of Newton metres on tap here, rather to how many Hiluxes have been sold in…

What’s so wrong with my car’s climate control? Cooling the air in a car is hugely energy-inefficient, and traditionally, the heat coming through the vents made use of the engine’s waste product. But as electric propulsion takes over, that heat has to be produced by other means. So what’s JLR’s answer? It’s a twofold solution: Air Bubble maintains a bubble of warm air in the cabin rather than constantly drawing in fresh air and bringing it up to temperature, and Warm Air Blanket creates a specific climate for each occupant by heating surrounding surfaces (seats, sun visors, door tops, transmission tunnel sides). If you’re driving alone energy isn’t wasted heating unused areas. What if someone drops an air biscuit? A boot filter removes CO2, moisture and particulates. What’s the efficiency…

HELLO MONTH 1 RENAULT CLIO 1.2 EDC THOSE WHO ‘READ’ the pictures in TopCar will notice there’s something amiss here. That’s because Renault offered to spice things up by swapping Cleo – my nickname for the Malta blue GT-Line Clio we’ve had for the past four months for a shiny new 1.2 EDC model in stunning passion red paintwork. Think of her as Cleo’s gutsier, more mature sister. Getting to know her has been my top priority this month. So what’s different besides the paint job? For starters, the engine has an extra cylinder making it 33 per cent larger in capacity than the GT-Line’s 0.9-litre triple. The additional 18kW and 40Nm it produces is immediately apparent in terms of both refinement and general tractability. Given that the car was…

1 FINISHING IS A RESULT, WINNING A BONUS Much may have changed, not least the continents on which it’s run (security fears prompted a switch to South America in 2009) but the Dakar is still hard as nails, breaking weak machinery and minds with impunity. This year’s epic will run over 4717 off-road kilometres and last a full two weeks (3-16 January). Starting in Rosario and finishing in Buenos Aries, Argentina, this year’s stages will have everything: treacherous mountain tracks, suspension-crunching boulder fields and towering sand dunes. The stages get tougher as the event progresses, forcing teams to pace themselves. 2 REMEMBER SEBASTIAN LOEB? HE’S IN IT Fresh from being dropped from Citroen’s WTCC effort, all eyes will be on nine-time WRC champ Loeb as he jumps into a Peugeot…

AS THE COUNTDOWN to Melbourne continues so Formula 1 realises how close it came to losing three teams during its off-season. Forget the demise of perennial off-season battlers such as Sauber, Force India and Manor – this time the threatened teams were multiple champions Red Bull Racing and Lotus (as Benetton / Renault), and Scuderia Toro Rosso, Red Bull’s junior outfit. Formula 1 was forced to stare down the barrel until the first week in December, when Renault boss Carlos Ghosn approved the buy-back of Lotus – and with that single transaction the ruthless Lebanese-Brazilian accountant known within the French company as ‘Le Costcutter’ secured the futures not only of the team it had sold to a duo of entirely enthusiastic yet F1-naïve venture capitalists in 2009, but also both…

VOLVO HAS MORPHED significantly over the past few years into a sophisticated and well sought-after brand. Its cars are cool – made cooler by the company’s outlook on safety in general and the company’s acquisition of Polestar Performance. The car you see here is no regular S60 as it’s been significantly tweaked by the Polestar division to make it more direct and focused for not only the race track but for everyday driving conditions, too. So what is all the fuss about? Well, it’s a genuine Polestar model for starters which means it features more than 50 upgrades and 200 new parts over the regular S60 T6 making this a pretty special machine. The biggest change forms part of the powerplant – the 3.0-litre six-cylinder engine has been massaged to…

I DON’T PROFESS TO know much about CrossFit, the newish exercise genre that blends strength and conditioning ideals. I’ve been cross, and I’ve seen people who are fit. Does that count? No? Okay, how about mixing the genes of a sprinter with those of a body-builder? Now we’re talking. Anyway, I imagine the new Mustang would be a great CrossFitter. I mean just look at it, all bulging muscle and toned body. It’s also pretty athletic, but I’m getting ahead of myself. The ’Stang’s exterior style needs little explanation, its 50-year-old heritage is clear, yet its design is palpably 2015. I love the confidence of its reverse rake nose, its planted width, hunkered-down stance and tri-bar LED-fired tail-lights. More elaborate exhaust exits would be cool, but other than that there’s…

IN AN UNUSUAL move at the recent launch of the second-generation X1, BMW brought its predecessor along. Good move - having the old car as reference accentuated the new model’s fuller-shaped, less angular, far prettier sheet metal. Slightly shorter, but wider and taller, the body features shorter overhangs, courtesy of a switch to a predominantly front-wheel-drive based platform. Markedly different proportions within roughly the same footprint mean the new X1 now resembles its larger X-model brethren and less like a higher-riding estate. An almost 500km two-day launch route consisting of both tarmac and gravel allowed a thorough evaluation of both the ‘intelligent’ four-wheel drive system (front-wheel drive models, badged sDrive, are also available), as well as the revised 2.0-litre turbodiesel that powers the 20d. With outputs of 140kW and 400Nm,…

CLASSIC MASERATIS SUCH as the wedgy Bora, darting Khamsin and menacing Merak were never as technically advanced as their rivals but they were rare and exotic two-door coupes to swoon over. The Quattroporte (four-door in Italian), whose long-lived moniker dates back to the 60s, was the dignified saloon, boasting understated Italian luxury and style, with a fair lick of speed thrown into the mix. Despite obvious appeal, none of those cars ever sold in great numbers. But nowadays you can forget small volumes and remote aspirations, Fiat-owned Maserati wants to go mainstream with a massive 50000 units per annum sales target. And the Ghibli is the vehicle Maserati hopes will get it there. Available in both V6 diesel and bi-turbo petrol, we’ve bagged the keys to the most powerful V6…

1 ELECTRIC TURBOS The problem with conventional turbochargers is lag: they can’t boost engine airflow until there’s sufficient exhaust pressure to spin the turbine. To overcome this low engine-speed problem, Audi plans to add an electric turbocharger, which can start compressing air in as little as 250 milliseconds. Added to conventionally blown six- and eight-cylinder twin-turbo engines, Audi hopes to eliminate lag, deliver more explosive standing start performance and reduce the number of times you reach for a downshift 2 48V ‘MILD HYBRID’ WITH BELT STARTER GENERATOR ‘Mild hybrid’ is another term for stop-start. 48v will nearly double the capabilities of next-gen 12v systems, by saving 0.7 litres of fuel per 100km, recuperating up to 12kW of energy and coasting for up to 30sec without troubling the sparkplugs. Plus it…

LAND ROVER is developing the world’s first eight-speed dual-clutch transmission optimised for off-road use. DCTs are effectively two gearboxes in one, with one clutch controlling the odd gears and the second clutch the even gears, connected to the engine in turn depending on which gear is engaged. An output shaft from each gearbox applies torque to the driven wheels via the differential. Electronics pre-determine the next cog and hydraulics engage it ahead of the shift itself, for seamless progress. There’s a lot of activity on DCTs: pioneering VW is working on a 10-speed ’box with a torque capacity up to 550Nm; JLR’s can supposedly handle 600Nm, more than enough for punishing off-road durability testing. 1 Wide range for max control Codenamed POLAR 3, the gear train layout offers a number…

MONTH 7 CITROËN C4 CACTUS I MUST SAY, more than seven months into its stint as a TopCar long-termer, the Cactus is sticking with the familiar refrain we’ve become so accustomed to – fun, funky and frugal. This despite my cheeky call in last month’s update for something to go a bit wrong to break up the squeaky-clean narrative. As if to heed my call, two small things did transpire to spike a bit of alarm. First of all, the front left fog light popped loose from its housing, which is a bit odd considering the car is rarely driven vigorously (check my fuel consumption if you don’t believe me), save for the odd camera car job, or the driving to capture the picture you see here. I wanted to…

MONTH 4 VW TOUAREG LUXURY 3.0 V6 TDI 4MOTION R-LINE Wolfsburg’s scourge A Volkswagen diesel, have you no conscience? Relax – it’s not evil, just ruthlessly efficient, mine sitting comfortably now at 10.7L/100km where I expect it to remain for the next few instalments. A 100-litre fuel tank means refills often cost north of R1000 so be wary. Volkswagen may make a lofty claim of around 7.2L/100km but believe me that’s pure fiction. I suppose I could try to tuck it into single digits but that will require a lobotomy. Row your own It happens more often than I like to admit but when you have the good fortune of running a long-term test car with a sweet automatic transmission like the Toaureg’s eight-speed unit, a month or more can…

MONTH 8 BMW 335i GT WHEN IT COMES to technology BMW is at the top of the pile, a brief glance at the all-new BMW 7 Series on page 42 validates this fact. You see the technology featured in the 7 Series, like ConnectedDrive before it, will eventually filter down BMW’s vehicular hierarchy system and into your 1 Series – it’s the way the automotive world works. We first heard about ConnectedDrive a few years ago at a BMW webinar that prophesied about an intuitive, fully connected and user friendly system to solve all onboard woes and link your car with the outside world. While I was a little sceptical at the time I’m happy to admit it’s truly the best of its kind supplying an innovative network between the…